Hello, I am Robert G. Male. Welcome to WraithStop™. Here you will find links that I think are of interest. Furthermore these are links that I want to keep track of because they have given me either ideas or some other form of inspiration for my writing. Links are listed in order lowest to highest both in the date they are given and the order in which they appear (meaning: read them from the bottom up for a certain day's list). Some of these sites may require you to sign up for free. Without further ado, the links...

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September 2009

September 8, 2009

• Stephen King's novel The Dark Half was many people's first introduction to the word psychopomp. Another example is in the movie The Crow. Neither of these particularly fit the archetype of the psychopomp in the different lores from around the world. That both of these examples involve animals leaves it open to a bit of a surprise to learn that many psychopomp examples from the lores are human-shaped figures. Even more interesting is that some of them are living people. {Ref#6 - Others}

• Of all the animals commonly found the owl is one shrouded in mystery and cloaked in superstition. This page delves into some of the lore about owls, the good and the bad, from different places around the world. The symbology is pretty simple, but lends itself to good use. Some of the magic surrounding them and using them is interesting. Don't forget the connection to witches--like so many other things.

• This one needs a little background. Searching for "necropolis" yielded an interesting bit of trivia from Encyclopaedia Britannica, but they of course want money for you to see more than a couple of lines, which soon segues into a hit up for money, so off I went for the same information elsewhere to share. That led to this article, which briefly mentions the salient fact, that a necropolis was often situated on the road out of town--to lead angry spirits away, apparently. What this page has aside from general info on a necropolis and "grave goods"--very Egyptian sounding process of burying people with things they enjoyed--is some fascinating and gruesome information on the burial of black plague victims. The numbers were huge and the entire process was not without its own non-decaying-kind of corruption. Corpse "bearers" were a rough lot more interested in money than the danger of moving the dead from the plague. Grave robbing was common in and out of plague years, even including bodies stolen from homes, perhaps even under threat of or involving actual violence against the living. Also of note were "homicidal nurses who robbed the dying and then perished themselves", and corpse gases causing explosions. Lastly, Enon Chapel (I mistook it for at least a triple-take as Enron Chapel) had over 1000 buried in its basement as part of some scheme.

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	Suggested Reading:
	This scary book available at Battered Spleen Productions™.
	Suggested Listening:
	This free scary audio book available at Battered Spleen Productions™.

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